Meeting Your Significant Other’s Parents Will Seem Even More Frightening After Reading These Stories

So, you’ve met someone. You’re enjoying the blissful first days of a relationship, the pressure-free thrill. Then, reality begins to set in. First, you tackle the friends. And then – later down the line, if you’re lucky – come the parents.

No matter what age, meeting your significant other’s folks is a daunting and somewhat terrifying task. For some, the initial introduction goes smoothly, but for the less fortunate, horrifying first impressions can haunt the entire relationship.

These hilarious tales from Reddit make even Gaylord Fockers’ in-laws look approachable.

Nothing says “I’m sleeping with your daughter!” better than a near-death experience and some bodily fluids. From quiteright:

My girlfriend had me over for dinner at her parents house for the first time. Steak dinner with all of the fixins’. I take my first bite, swallow, immediately start choking. I’m so scared that I’m going to make a bad impression, so I took a drink of water to try to wash it down. Didn’t work, so after about fifteen seconds without a single breath my face turns red, so I start freaking out an point at my throat. So my girlfriend’s mom does the Heimlich maneuver and I throw up all over the floor. Her two miniature schnauzers start licking up the aftermath, girlfriend’s dad puts his napkin down and leaves the room.

Dealing with cultural biases can be an uncomfortable part of meeting someone’s family. As, jambelaw‘s story demonstrates.

I dated a Korean guy for a month or so in high school. I went to his house after school one day, and encountered his dad on the sidewalk before we made it there. He looks at me, looks at his son, and begins pointing at me and yelling at him in Korean. I had to awkwardly stand there for about five minutes of them going back and forth, before we parted ways and I just went home. Turns out he didn’t want him dating a non-Korean.

My wife brought me to Japan to meet her parents. She hadn’t told them she was even dating anyone. She had told them she was bringing a friend from America and they assumed she meant a woman. When her father picked us up at the train station and saw her standing with a hairy white guy he looked devastated, though he tried to hide it.

Dinner was awkward and quiet. Two days later her whole family came over and interrogated me, asking if I was going to marry their daughter. Telling them that I wanted to was basically how I proposed. Her mother started crying, and not in a good way.

When I was 16, my also 16-year old girlfriend of 2 weeks got so hammered at a party that we called an ambulance. I met her parents in the ER as their daughter they didn’t know drank was having her stomach pumped.

My sister’s boyfriend met my parents for the first time at a Mexican restaurant. He was too shy to tell them he couldn’t tolerate spicy food. About 15 minutes in he was sweating profusely and had dropped the bottle of wine on the table and all over my mum. While trying to help her clean it up and dry his face, he set his napkin down on a candle and managed to start a small fire.

Dads will always be dads, in every situation. Antics range from threatening boyfriends with weaponry and, believe it or not, exhibitionist behavior.

Aeosculap‘s girlfriend’s dad had his supplies at the ready when they first met.

Was dropping off my new girlfriend at home, after high school, and as I’m pulling out of the driveway, she comes back out and tells me her dad wants to speak to me for a minute. I’m a bit apprehensive at this point, from what I know of her dad: conservative; only wants his daughters dating boys in their church (which I wasn’t even close); shouldn’t have been home till later; ex-marine.